Juvenile justice system runs wild

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A government department set up 14 years ago to rehabilitate
juvenile criminals has never recorded reoffending rates and is
unable to measure the success of its detention centres and
educational activities, a report by the NSW Audit Office says.

The Auditor-General, Bob Sendt, said the Department of Juvenile
Justice had failed to monitor its own performance or collect
information to assist the long-term management of offenders. "After
14 years I would have thought they would have made more effort," he
said.

"The department works with some of the most troubled and
troublesome young people in society … They see it as their
mission to rehabilitate young offenders and reduce the risk of
reoffending. But because they don't have information available,
they don't know which of their activities and interventions are
working."

The department deals with thousands of juvenile offenders each
year and oversees detention centres, community supervision and
conferencing.

"We don't have information that shows whether there is a greater
likelihood of reoffending if you have been through one system as
opposed to the other, so they don't know whether they are getting
the balance right," he said.

"They don't know which form of intervention succeeds and which
doesn't. Other jurisdictions are doing it."

The NSW Juvenile Justice Minister, Tony Kelly, said the
department planned to track the progress of young offenders through
the justice system after they reached the age of 18.

"The causes of young people's reoffending are highly complex and
involve a multitude of factors, many of which are also outside the
department's control," Mr Kelly said.

The Opposition juvenile justice spokeswoman, Catherine Cusack,
said the report showed the department "doesn't know what it is
doing".

"It confirms our belief that this Government does not want to be
accountable for its soft and fuzzy approach to young offenders,"
she said.

"If they are not evaluating and testing their programs, for all
we know they may be doing more harm than good."